President’s May 16 Town Hall: A Recap

President Eduardo Peñalver updated the campus community on a number of university initiatives and developments at his final Town Hall of the 2022–2023 academic year on May 16.

The full video can be found at President's Town Hall - 5/16/23.

Drawing from the presentation he recently shared at the President’s State of the University, Peñalver pointed to challenges facing all institutions of higher education, including the impending demographic cliff (fewer college-bound high school students expected in the coming years); an erosion of confidence and trust in colleges and universities; and technological disruptions (e.g. what to do with ChatGPT?).

At the same time, the president shared the university has a lot going for it, including its location in Seattle—which Axios recently ranked as the top destination for college graduates—and its distinctive Jesuit education.

Speaking to strategic efforts to expand SU’s reach in terms of visibility, enrollment and responding to students’ needs, Peñalver asked university leaders to provide updates in the following key areas.

• Enrollment: As Interim Vice Provost for Enrollment Management James shared, the university received a record number of applications from first-time-in-college (FTIC) students—more than 9,000—and expects significant gains in the academic quality and diversity of the fall 2023 entering class as we work toward a goal of enrolling 1,025 FTIC students.

• Retention: Melore Nielsen, who was recently appointed the inaugural Vice Provost for Student Success, shared that the university is making progress toward its goal of increasing the retention rate by 2 percent (from the current 84 percent).

• Marketing: SU’s newly hired and inaugural Chief Marketing Officer Robin Meeks spoke of SU’s “unique proposition” as a Jesuit university and the importance of building a holistic brand experience for prospective and current students, graduates and partners.

• Website: Vice President for University Affairs Scott McClellan discussed SU’s web redesign, which he described as “reimaging our web presence” to create a new site targeted primarily to prospective students and a corresponding intranet to support the needs of current students, faculty and staff. The new SeattleU.edu site and intranet will launch in December.

Among other updates and information, the president encouraged the campus community to participate in the final input session for the Mission Priority Examen, which will be held May 30. Learn more and register here.

President Peñalver also fielded a number of questions from those in attendance.

(A video recording of the Town Hall will be shared when it is available.)